"On the 22nd of June, 1918, the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus was on its way to its next scheduled performance in Hammond, Indiana..."
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LearningTranscript
00:00On the 22nd of June, 1918, the Hagenbeck-Wallis Circus was on its way to its next scheduled
00:17performance in Hammond, Indiana. More than 300 laborers and circus performers were on board one
00:25of the circus's two dedicated trains when it was forced to stop to deal with a mechanical issue.
00:31The vast majority of passengers were asleep, unaware entirely that another train was bearing
00:38down on them at full speed, and that in just a few minutes the Hagenbeck-Wallis Circus would
00:43suffer one of the worst tragedies it would ever endure. The Wallis Circus was founded in 1882
00:53by Ben E. Wallis, a horse trader based in Indiana. In its early years it was first and foremost a
01:01traveling horse show, with a few exotic animals thrown in to bring in the crowds.
01:07As time went on, though, the show developed to acquiring a huge and varied animal menagerie,
01:13alongside a company of acrobats and performers. What had started as a modest road show traveling
01:19a handful of midwestern states eventually became one of the grandest spectacles in the country.
01:26The circus rode the rails all over the mainland United States with a show that boasted three
01:31circus rings, two separate stages, 10 acres of canvas, and space enough for 20,000 spectators.
01:40In 1907 the already massive circus would grow still bigger when Wallis purchased wholesale
01:47the Carl Hagenbeck Circus, combining the two into the Hagenbeck-Wallis Circus.
01:53This new show was of such an unwieldy size that it was forced to travel the country aboard
01:59two separate trains, each laden with performers, animals, equipment, circus tents, and more.
02:07Any operation of such impressive scale was bound to experience a few incidents here and there,
02:13and indeed the Hagenbeck-Wallis Circus weathered more than its fair share of disaster over the
02:19years. Minor train crashes, accidents on the road, and a season of severe floods all took their toll
02:26on the circus family, but it soldiered on nonetheless. On the evening of the 21st of June,
02:341918, the show had just concluded a successful run in Michigan City and was on its way to its
02:40next stop in Hammond, Indiana. One train was well underway and the next was following along,
02:47albeit slowly. It was a fact of life that the circus trains were slow. They were antique stock,
02:55built in the late 1800s. Though they'd been renovated several times they were still made
03:01mostly of wood, in contrast to the predominantly steel rolling stock that had become common on the
03:06rails by 1918. Their outdated construction was still perfectly legal, but meant that they were
03:14limited to a speed no greater than 40 kilometers or 25 miles per hour. This steady pace was not
03:22a problem for most of those on board. A collection of more than 300 laborers and circus performers
03:28were housed in bunks and cabins throughout the train, and the vast majority of them spent the
03:33journey getting some shut-eye in preparation for another hard day of work ahead. The slow pace of
03:40the train would have made for relatively good conditions for getting some sleep.
03:45Equally, though, this limited speed meant very slow progress towards their destination...
03:51progress that got even slower when brakeman Oscar Tim spotted a blazing hot axle bearing
03:57midway down the train. Through a series of signals the engine was brought to a stop,
04:02and Tim and several others dismounted to place warning flares on the rails to ward off other
04:08trains and then to see about repairing the overheated axle. Before they could do so,
04:14however, a bright light was seen approaching from behind them on the track... another train.
04:20Brakeman Tim waved frantically, wondering why the approaching engine didn't seem to be slowing down.
04:27Surely the driver could see the signal flares?
04:31Tim sprinted down the track towards it, waving and bellowing, and at the very last moment even
04:37resorted to throwing a signal flare he was holding at the window of the driver's cabin as it passed
04:42him. The approaching train did not stop. It didn't even slow down. At full speed it plowed directly
04:50into the stationary circus train. The wooden construction of the circus train offered little
04:56protection for those inside. The approaching train ground through several fully occupied
05:02carriages before coming to a halt. One surviving passenger gave this surreal account of waking
05:08from sleep to the sound of the collision, and then being violently ejected from the train.
05:14I woke up to the sound of splintering wood, and then suddenly I was sitting up. Then there was
05:20another crash, and another, and another. I was pounded into the corner of my berth. My scalp
05:27was split open, the whole car buckled. It parted down the center as clean as though it had been
05:33sliced with a giant knife. I felt my section rising as the engine of the troop train plowed
05:41into it. Then I was away up in the air on top of the wreckage in my shirt and drawers. I put down
05:49my head and lay still. A coat came sailing over and landed on top of me. Then everything was quiet.
05:59For those like this survivor who made it through the initial wreck the danger was not over. Very
06:06quickly a fire began, a blaze that would later be traced back to the oil lamps which had been
06:12used for illumination throughout the circus train. Wounded and shocked, those who had been ejected
06:18from the train were now locked in a race against time to dig out their fellow survivors before the
06:24fire could consume the wreckage. It was a complex rescue operation, and the wreck site a mess of
06:31precarious ledges and splintered wood, but the circus folk were used to danger. Clowns, laborers,
06:40strongmen, roustabouts, aerialists, and others fell upon the wreck and started hauling survivors
06:46out and to safety. Slowly fire companies and local residents arrived on scene and began to
06:53transport the injured to nearby hospitals. Morticians, too, were called to the wreck,
07:00and the dead were pulled from the ruins of the train and taken to every funeral home that was
07:05available. The sheer number of casualties was overwhelming. 86 had been killed and a further 127
07:14injured. So what had caused this devastating collision? Why hadn't the approaching train
07:21stopped when the driver saw the signal flares and stationary train ahead of him?
07:26Could he possibly have missed these glaringly obvious dangers? As it turned out he had. The
07:34driver in question was engineer Alonzo Sargent, and he was driving an empty troop train.
07:41The reason why he missed the flares and didn't see the train was simple. Alonzo Sargent had,
07:47lulled by a warm cabin, a recent heavy meal, and the gentle rolling motion of the train,
07:53fallen asleep at the controls of his engine. Sargent and the fireman of the train were both
08:00arrested and criminal charges were leveled against them. These ultimately came to nothing. A
08:07deadlocked jury led to a mistrial, and both men escaped with only the guilt and shame of having
08:12caused so much devastation as punishment. Needless to say, losing so many of its performers and
08:20workers was a huge blow to the Hagenbeck-Wallis Circus, but it was not a final one. Other
08:27circuses around the country, hearing of the incident, sent staff and performers to fill out
08:32the show, and the Hagenbeck-Wallis Circus was, quite miraculously, able to continue its run after
08:38missing just two scheduled shows. It is a remarkable testament to the spirit and determination of the
08:45circus folk that they were able to carry on in this fashion even when so many of their number
08:51were injured or grieving. Indeed, though forever wounded by the trauma of the crash, the Hagenbeck-
08:57Wallis Circus went on for many years, eventually being acquired by the Ringling Brothers Circus,
09:04and only giving its final performance decades later in 1936. Many of those who died in the
09:12crash near Hammond were buried in a dedicated area of Woodlawn Cemetery. Their graves were
09:17surrounded by statues of elephants, then a common part of almost every circus, with trunks lowered
09:24in a gesture of mourning. This area of the cemetery, known as Showman's Rest, is owned to
09:31this day by the Showman's League of America, and serves as the final resting place of many traveling
09:37performers. They lie now at rest, surrounded by people from history who took the same road as they
09:44did... people who, if they found themselves in the same time and place, they might have considered
09:50family.